DEC accepting hydrofracking comments till December 12

Mother Nature is giving us some nice weather so we can get all our projects done before winter sets in.

The same can’t be said for the Rockies as a blizzard with 70- mph winds whipped the snow through the mountains last weekend.

I’m sure some Elk hunters high up in the mountains got trapped if they didn’t bail out early enough.

The inch of snow we got here last Saturday morning made it good for tracking through noon on Sunday.

My grandson Jacob came up for three days to Deer hunt with me and I just couldn’t put a Deer or Bear past him.

One buck I jumped ran not far from where Jacob was watching and swam across the Moose River.

A Bear on the next little push went off to the side and ran up the mountain instead of where he was watching.

We caught that Bear wandering through the area on the trail camera we had set up the night before.

Jacob saw its tracks as he was going in that morning and he told me there was a very big dog walking down the road.

When we walked back out we saw its tracks that went right by the camera.

Moose had also been all over the area but we never did bump into one. There were cow and calf tracks and those of a big bull for over a mile down the road. This action happened before I put up the camera so we missed them.

I saw a nice buck just after Jacob left me on Saturday morning.

We were walking the trails part of the afternoon and bumped into a big doe that was very cooperative and let us get a good look at her.

She didn’t have a buck with her but there were lots of signs that there was one not too far away.

We had a great time tramping around together, flushing a few grouse and seeing some songbirds.

That’s hunting in the Adirondacks; you can cover a lot of miles and not see many Deer.

One of these times Jacob will be in the right spot at the right time.

Just being out there is the joy of it all.

The wind blows most every day and can be captured by wild mills for power.

Solar panels can be put up to capture the sun, which shines enough to power them, and water still runs downstream which powers turbines for electricity.

Some of the oil companies have made investments in these sources of energy but still are pushing for more drilling for oil and natural gas.

After the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico when BP’s oil drilling rig caught fire and blew up on April 20, 2010, it’s hard to say that drilling for oil is safe. This oil spill will have effects on our Gulf Coast for years to come, and on the birds and fish for along time after that.

Drilling for oil hasn’t been put on the back burner by any means, but now the big push is for the oil sands in Canada, which they want to pipe down to Texas for refining and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for natural gas nearly in our back yard.

Just the other day I got an ad pushing for fracking that was put out by the American Petroleum Institute.

It wanted me to call the Governor’s Office and the DEC Commissioner’s Office to urge them to support natural gas development in New York.

I called both and did just the opposite—opposing fracking for natural gas.

A public hearing on the subject is coming up, but until then you can go on the DEC website and send in your comment for or against fracking. Commentary will be accepted until December 12th.

I urge you to look into the problems caused by fracking done to ground water and downstream waters in Pennsylvania following drilling by companies for natural gas there.

These companies are the only ones putting ads on TV for development of natural gas.

They make it sound like it’s the only thing left for us to do to keep the country running and stop our dependency on foreign oil.

I know we have bigger brains than that when it comes to energy.

The auto companies brought back the electric car after pulling the first batch and burying them in the dessert when the oil giants bought up the patents on the batteries for these cars.

The aim of the oil companies is to make money—the heck with the little guy who still has to pay big prices at the pump.

With all this nice weather birds are lingering longer, but that’s another story. See ya.